Letters to the Editor
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Of course he should be fired.
Don Imus has a history of saying racist and antisemitic things. The man is a bigot, period. I don't care if he brings in money for the station -- he should be fired, along with all the other modern-day Father Coughlins like Limbaugh and Savage and their sick ilk. These people are hatemongers, and they harm and divide society.
Mr. Imus is free to speak his mind. The First Amendment guarantees it. However, he has no right under law to spew his garbage over commercial airwaves; that decision is solely in the hands of the private owners of whatever medium Imus is on. Let Don Imus, who to me looks like just another bitter drunk, rant away on the streetcorner along with the other derelicts.
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Not only racist
Not only is it extremely racist, it is also extremely sexist. I can't believe this jerk hasn't been fired yet!
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Imus Silencing Contravenes First Amendment
As offensive as Imus is, depriving him of a job would contravene the First Amendmant. As reprehensible as his views are, they are protected. His protesters are perfectly in line to call for his head. But we mustn't be so lazy as to assume that it is inevitably a good thing to silence his repugnant views.
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That took a longer than I thought it would...
I'm just going to put this out there and see what happens.
It seems that it took a VERY long time for Broadsheet to get anything posted about this story that wasn't just about "race" but talking about a couple of groups of women in college basketball's highest eschelons.
I'm openly wondering why it took so long for a comment to be made. It's Monday night now, but the story had been running since Wednesday.
This isn't a swipe. There could be several reasons why no attention had been paid before now. There was a long weekend for some people. There are certainly bigger big fish to fry in the political/global scene.
But I dare say that had this been a different group or ethnicitiy of women involved, I think that it would have been brough to the fore much more quickly.
I'm glad that it's here to be debated now, but I hope that Broadsheet and Salon in general can learn from this that they might need to be a bit quicker on the uptake when it comes to something this straight-forwardly sexist, bigoted, and racist.
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Should Imus be fired?
Imus should be fired only if every African-American comedian, "artist", actor or celebrity who uses the word nigger as a part of their act is similarly terminated. What Imus said was inappropriate. However, it is time for the racist sycophants (like Sharpton) to stop the posturing hiding behind what is an unacceptable set of social double standards based on skin color.
Imus' second inappropriate act was to stoop and go on the Al ("I'm tha real ho") Sharpton radio show in an effort to appease his African-American critics. Let's face it, most anyone who listens to Sharpton is not going hear to what Imus says no matter how sincere.
He needs to appropriately apologize and then tell his critics to get over it.
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Why I'm not signing the "Fire Imus" petition I got from NOW
I don't know much about Imus. I agree his comments were racist and insulting. However I'm not signing any petitions to have him fired either. I've never listened to his show, and I don't plan to start now. People who do like his show are free to turn it off if they disagree with it. CBS Radio can choose to fire Imus. (I'm pretty sure it's CBS Radio - it wasn't mentioned in the Broadsheet article, but according to the NY Times link they own his syndicated show.)
It's not a free speech issue either - as DurianJoe points out, free speech gives you the right to express your opinion, not the right to use broadcasting to express your opinion. But I'm unsettled by this for the same reason I'm unsettled when an evangelical Christian group tries to get a TV show off the air because they find it offensive, or a liberal group tries to get the 700 Club thrown off the air, or when there was the big brouhaha over Bill Maher's comments on 9/11. If you don't like a TV show or radio show, turn it off! Something is always going to offend someone.
As someone who worked in the broadcast industry for several years, I guarantee that every receptionist at every TV and radio station in the country gets their share of crank calls daily from people complaining about something that offended them and should therefore be taken off the air. Yes, Imus's comments are especially egregious. So I won't listen to his show. I don't listen to Rush Limbaugh or Howard Stern either, but I'm sure I'd be every bit as offended if I listened to them. So my advice to all of you is what the receptionist at my last job used to tell people when they complained about TV shows we aired: try using the "off" switch.
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Prissy prissy prissy prissy very VERY politically correct!
TAKE A CHILL PILL. I'm not an Imus fan, but what the fuck, kids? You can't handle "nappy headed ho's"? It's a shame Imus didn't ask (oh, excuse me, 'ax') Sharpton for his opinion on those two white kids who were kidnapped, tortured, raped and murdered -- you know, one of those stories that gets NO ink whatsoever..?
Oh, blue sky everything-is-wonderful peace-love-dove "melting pot" nonsense... Are they putting Disney Chemicals in the water supply near you all?
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Shock jock shocked
These guys lived to be canned.
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fire him already
As a Rutgers' alumnae, I'm very disappointed and saddened by these comments. Clearly, Imus has no clue as to how long and hard these women have worked to become the stellar athletes they are today. And most of the current roster is from the NJ/NY area, these girls are representative of their communities.
If Imus is really serious about recognizing how insulting his comments are, he should raise money for next year's team and attend games to draw attention to women's collegiate sports.
In the meantime, I hope there's more attention on this team's success and this year's efforts aren't reduced to a sick racist rant.
Go Scarlet Knights!